The Jumper Chronicles
by HermioneGirl96
Summary: After the first war, Remus realizes his chances of working in the wizarding world are slim, and his wand just reminds him of how James, Lily, and Peter died. To escape this world of pain, Remus attends med school, posing as a Muggle and going by his middle name: John. A story of the missing 12 years of Remus's life . . . in which he became John Watson. Guys, seriously, it all fits.
1. The Decision

**Disclaimer: Even J. K Rowling and Moffat aren't **_**quite**_** awesome enough to be each other, and I'm not either of them, so therefore I don't own any of this. **

Peter's funeral was sparsely attended. There were plenty in the Order who would have liked to commemorate the heroic death of the young man who had dared to confront the traitorous Sirius Black, but even with Voldemort apparently gone the members of the Order knew better than to assemble unless absolutely necessary. There was no sense presenting such an attractive target. The attendees of the funeral were therefore limited to those who had cared about Peter as a person, not for his dying act: Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew, along with a smattering of other Pettigrew relatives; some Hogwarts professors, including Dumbledore; a few clients of the Pettigrew family business; and Remus.

Dumbledore sought Remus out after the ceremony. "How are you?"

Remus almost gave an automatic "Fine" before thinking the matter through and deciding that lying was useless. "Bad."

Dumbledore grimaced sympathetically. "Have you slept since—?"

"Keeled over yesterday, yeah. Which was probably good, if you actually think about it. But it feels kind of _wrong_, not logically but just _feeling_. I mean, Peter and James and Lily will never get to sleep again. And I can't stop asking myself how I missed Sirius—I mean, Black—"

"Being too trusting is hardly something to be ashamed of, and plenty of people older and wiser than you missed the signs as well." Dumbledore didn't usually talk with his hands, but now he did, as if straining to make enough of an impression for Remus to believe him.

"But you didn't know him as well as I did. _No one_ knew him as well as I did, not even James once he started dating Lily. I should have seen what he was becoming."

Dumbledore simply peered at Remus until the young man understood that the subject was closed.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Remus asked finally.

"First off, how you're doing. The first time sleeping is always the hardest, so I hope you will get more rest from here on out. Have you been eating?"

Remus glowered. "Yes. It feels like I'm not grieving properly, but the one thing I seem able to do is make bread pudding. Without magic. Something about cooking just feels kind of . . . right. And I eat what I make. The first two days, I threw up afterward, but somehow I kept cooking anyway. Yesterday, when I fell asleep, I woke up on the kitchen floor with a pot of burnt bread on the stove. At least I didn't burn the house down."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "I am inordinately glad to hear it. The world needs a Marauder."

Remus shuddered. _A_ Maruader.

"Now we come to my main point. Remus, how would you like to teach at Hogwarts?"

A flood of elation and pain and shock threatened to drown him. "What?"

"I am offering you the Defense against the Dark Arts professorship. Will you take it?"

Hurt and surprise and gratitude. "I—I—at _Hogwarts_?"

"I see you did not anticipate this."

Remus tried to picture it, but as soon as he saw the castle in his mind he knew there was only one possible course of action. "Thank you, Dumbledore. You can't imagine how much it means to me that you would trust me to instruct your students. But I'm afraid I can't."

"If this is because of your condition, Remus, I assure you that between the two of us we could manage everything quite safely."

"Perhaps we could, but I'm afraid the camel's back was already broken before we heaped my lycanthropy on top of it. Hogwarts, to me, is James-and-Sirius-and-Peter-and-me. I couldn't possibly live there again, especially not this soon."

Dumbledore nodded, his eyes much softer than usual. "I see. What will you do?"

"I don't delude myself that there's much of a chance of me getting a job in the wizarding world, and in any event it's hard to look at my wand without remembering how Peter and James and Lily died. And almost all my memories of magic are poisoned by Black. I think it might be best if I live as a Muggle. I've always wondered about being a doctor. It's hardly the first time I've considered that I wouldn't be welcome in the wizarding world—though it _is_ the first time I've thought I would prefer to be a Muggle."

"This is drastic, Remus."

"My life has included plenty of drastic incidents, and they seem to have only become more frequent recently. I don't see why I can't control one such incident myself. In fact, it seems rather natural."

"If you ever change your mind, in a day or a year or a decade, as long as I am headmaster at Hogwarts the Defense against the Dark Arts post will be yours for the taking."

If Remus had not run out of tears days ago, they would have pricked at his eyes now. "Thank you."

He chatted with the other guests at the funeral reception for a while and then Apparated home. James had helped him buy the cottage, and it was impossible to look around the house without remembering his friend's death. As much as keeping the place might have been a tribute to James, he had to move.


	2. The Name

**Disclaimer: I am neither J. K. Rowling nor Moffat—and they're not each other, so this would have to be fanfiction anyway—so I don't own any of the characters or settings or anything. Just appropriating them for my own amusement (and hopefully yours as well). **

**A/N: Major credits to allegrafp for having a Moony obsession that gave me Remus on the brain; for telling me that Hamish was Scottish for James and getting the mental gears irreversibly turning in the direction of this story; for discussing all things British and Sherlocky and Maraudery with me at length; and for reading this first and making suggestions. As I said, **_**major**_** credits. (She writes fanfiction too, and it's good! I recommend it! Look her up!)**

Talking to Dumbledore had forced Remus to think about all the changes he was planning. As he made yet another pot of bread pudding, he thought seriously about living as a Muggle for the first time. When the pudding was done and he had poured it into a bowl, Remus sat at the kitchen table and tried to plan the logistics of his coming transition.

If he was going to start a new life, he may as well do the thing properly and become someone completely different. That—it was so obvious that Remus was astonished that he'd never thought of it before—would necessitate a new name.

Remus turned his name over in his head. Remus John Lupin. He heard his first name in a dozen voices, most of them belonging to people who were dead now. His parents, Lily, and for a few years the other Marauders had called him Remus so often that he'd sometimes wondered if it were possible for a name to wear out. Yes, it would have to go—no one could say "Remus" as bracingly as James or as gently as Lily or as desperately as Peter or as enthusiastically as Sirius (he meant "Black"), and he didn't want to hear them try.

Lupin would have to go, too. By some joke of fate, his name matched his condition, and, in spite of his fondness for his father's family, he'd long wanted to be rid of the appellation. He'd thought the name was too much a part of him to get rid of it, but now that he had decided to take a new name he was glad of the opportunity to cast off the mocking surname.

But John. No one had ever called him John, but he'd always known it was a part of him. He had no memories attached to the name, just a tiny sense of self wrapped up in it. Perhaps this was the sort of thing he could keep. Yes, he decided, he would.

All right, then, he had one name. He decided to make John his first name, since—at least for a while—it would be the only name he bore that felt like it belonged to him. Working in order, he needed a middle name next. Somehow it felt right for the middle name to honor someone; if the name wasn't going to feel like it was his, it could belong to someone else, someone he loved. This flew in the face of his entire scheme to leave everything behind, but in reality the thought of trying to forget his friends was more repugnant than he could bear, so he accepted what felt right.

His mind first reached for Sirius's name, but, before he could try out the sound of "John Sirius" in his head, Remus remembered his so-called _friend's_ treachery and mentally dropped the name that suddenly scalded him. John James, then? No. Too biblical, and the alliteration sounded stupid. But John Peter was too biblical, too, so Remus returned to John James. Perhaps a variant on James would work better. Remus had some Scottish blood, and "James" in Scottish was "Hamish" . . . John Hamish. There was something to that.

Now for a surname. The first thing that came to mind was the other Maruaders' last names, but a mental image of James's doodles of "Lily Potter" surrounded by hearts all over his parchments and textbooks and schedules squashed that idea. Dumbledore might be the best man Remus had ever met, but it was a strange name, especially for the Muggle world, and taking his name would mean . . . what? He saw himself as Dumbledore's child? No. This was getting too weird.

Then something occurred to Remus—so obvious that he could scarcely believe it hadn't made itself known to him sooner. His mother's maiden name! She had been a Watson before she married, so being a Watson was as much a part of Remus's heritage as being a Lupin. Watson: It was a nice, normal, comforting name, capable of making him anonymous but also befitting of someone more distinguished and consequential. Remus had always liked his maternal grandfather; now, for the first time since Granddad had died, there would be another Mr. Watson about. Remus hoped he could live up to the title.

Remus assembled his new name in his head and turned it over and over. John Hamish Watson. John. Hamish. Watson. Yes, Remus decided. John Hamish Watson would do nicely.

**A/N: Are you buying it? Do you like it? How much do you want to hear about uni and med school? What about Afghanistan? Please review and give me feedback and ideas and suggestions!**


	3. Trust Issues

**Disclaimer: I'm neither Rowling nor Moffat. I'm not even British. **

**A/N: I was super impatient to meet Sherlock, so I'm writing parts of **_**A Study in Pink **_**and putting in flashbacks to explain how Remus got to the point of being a discharged army doctor in London. **

**Also, some of you have noticed the timeline issues. No, the timelines do not match up. Since **_**Sherlock**_** depends on its real-world timing more than **_**Harry Potter**_** does, I'm moving the Harry Potter storyline up 20 years. Harry was, for the purposes of this story, born in 2000. I am acutely aware that this is not canon. I will try not to break canon too often, but something had to be done to make this fic work. **

**This chapter takes place eight years after the previous one. **

Trust issues. She had the _cheek_ to write, "Trust issues." What did _she_ know?

It was easier for Remus to list what she did _not_ know.

She did _not_ know what it felt like to unroll a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ only to see a picture of one of her best friends on the cover, laughing madly as he was led off to jail. She did _not_ know what it felt like to unroll the _Prophet_ and see smaller versions of that picture every day for weeks. She did_ not_ know how it felt to get to the point where she didn't want to open the paper anymore, for fear of seeing that traitorous face, but having to open it anyway to see if any of her missing friends and acquaintances had turned up—alive or dead—since the paper's last edition.

She did _not_ know what it was like to scour all of her childhood memories, absolutely every pleasant thing that had ever happened to her, and look for signs that one of her best friends was secretly evil. She did _not_ know what it was like to bite back an inside joke or remind herself not to shoot anyone a secret glance, because the last surviving member of the intended audience of years' worth of habitual gestures was now imprisoned for killing another member of said audience. She did _not_ know what it was like to be convinced that she was the one who should have figured it out; she was the one who failed.

She did _not _know what it felt like to be rejected by the first 23 people she asked to make Wolfsbane Potion for her. She did _not_ know how hard it was to scour all of Diagon Alley and then all of Knockturn Alley and then all of Hogsmeade for potion-makers and apothecaries who might, on a good day, for the price of all of her gold, refrain from turning her out on the street screaming her secrets for all the world to hear. She did _not_ know what it was like to be hated for being something that she would have given everything she had not to be.

She did _not_ know how hard it was to conceal being a werewolf in London. She did _not_ know how difficult it was to keep a medical school roommate or a barrack full of soldiers from discovering a werewolf, even a Wolfsbane-sedated one, sleeping in their midst. She did _not_ know how careful one had to be in a world where the only people who could comprehend what one was were likely to hate one for it.

She did _not_ know how hard it was not to mention magic once one had spent seven years practicing it. She did _not_ know what it felt like to get the stares he got whenever he said "Merlin" instead of "God." She did _not_ know how stupid he had felt trying to figure out Muggle money for the first time when he was 21 years old. She did _not_ know how dire it would be if he did let something slip. She did _not_ know the pain of belonging to neither of two worlds, one of which had hurt him and the other of which refused to give up its secrets without a fight.

She did _not_ know how it felt to be shot at by people who had seemed friendly just days before. She did _not_ know the paranoia that set in when anyone could conceivably be under the Imperious Curse. She did _not_ know what it did to a person to jump from one war to a completely different one, with only the cutthroat world of medical school in between.

"Writing a blog would _honestly_ help."

Yeah, sure. Because everyone wants to read the ramblings of a lonely werewolf who's still trying to deal with the fact that he can't be a wizard. Because it was definitely _legal_ to ramble on to an unidentified Muggle public about being a werewolf ex-wizard. Right.

Trust issues indeed.

**A/N: Hopefully another chapter tomorrow, with Mike Stamford in it. Sherlock is coming soon!**


	4. Bart's

**Disclaimer: Still not mine.**

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! Also, random fact: When I type this up on the computer, I use Baskerville typeface. Because it's the little things.**

"It's me, remember? Mike Stamford? We were classmates at Bart's."

Bart's.

Remus's brain whirred as it always did when such a word came up, a word with so many memories attached to it that his mind couldn't seem to fasten on just one, at least not immediately.

The first thing Remus's mental gears seized on was the forged transcript. The wizarding war had ended in November, so he hadn't been able to join a Muggle university right away. As it turned out, that had been just as well. Remus had sold his cottage by mid-November and moved into a flat in London. It was tiny, and he'd Apparated to the Shrieking Shack and stayed there for days at a time while he transformed. The absences weren't ideal, but then nothing about a werewolf's life was. The flat was smaller than he would have liked, too, and the loneliness was crushing, but he didn't know anyone in London—and he was trying to make a clean break from his old life, anyway—and it wasn't as if he could live with just anybody. So he'd rented the tiny flat and dealt with life as it was.

The money from selling the cottage had been enough for the first month's rent and food, and for that Remus had been extremely grateful to his new middle-namesake. But he'd known the money was finite, especially given the sky-high fees for changing galleons into pounds, so he'd looked for a job as soon as he'd finished moving in. Remus had gotten lucky; the bookstore near St. Bart's medical school was hiring part-time clerks. Remus took the job, at once hating the fact that half time meant half pay and rejoicing that he could arrange his shifts so that none fell near the full moon. All of the time he didn't spend working he spent learning about the Muggle world, especially about how to get into Bart's, which offered an education that he coveted more every time a medical student walked through the bookstore's doors.

Remus found that one needed to attend uni before medical school, and that one's university sent a paper transcript to the medical school via Muggle post when one enrolled. For a time, Remus considered attending uni first, but the thought of racking up four more years' worth of debt and sitting in classes with upstart 18-year-old innocents after he had gone through a war . . . no. Instead, Remus read all of the books the bookstore sold containing medical and biological information. He had always excelled at studying, and, without the other Marauders around to distract him, he was an unbelievably quick learner. He became confident that uni was unnecessary and used magic to forge a transcript after figuring out what one was supposed to look like by using some basic Legillimency on a med school student customer. Outside of this, Remus tried not to use too much magic, but he had to get into medical school, and using every tool at his disposal made all the sense in the world.

Everyone at Bart's came from different places and backgrounds, which was a relief to Remus. All of the first year students were just starting out, which made the experience unlike starting work had been, because then only a few of the employees had been new. Unlike Hogwarts, there was no train that took all of the students to Bart's, but Remus realized after a time that there were, in fact, other ways to make friends than sitting in a compartment with them on the first day. He fell in with a group of intense, quiet young men and women who had a surprising sense of humor. Remus was glad he hadn't made friends too similar to James and Peter and Black, both because he didn't think his medical school grades could survive it and because the nostalgia would have choked him.

The classes were harder even than Transfiguration and Potions had been, and the studying was at times a nightmare, but hardest part was being a werewolf. Unlike the Marauders, no one here could become an Animagus and save Remus from the worst of himself. In a way, that was a blessing, because then he didn't need to think about the understandable but depressing fact that no one in this new world would have gone to that much trouble for him anyway. Medical school professors hated excuses for missing class and (heaven forbid) _labs_, and Remus learned quickly not to try to fool them the way he'd tried to fool his Hogwarts classmates. Instead, he Confunded them, making them forget his absences. If there had been someone he had trusted, he may have sent someone in his stead with Polyjuice Potion, but there was no one he could think of to do that, and he was rubbish at potion making anyway. He stuck with Confundus Charms.

Mike Stamford had been a part of a different group of students at Bart's—a louder, more gregarious one. Even so, the school was small enough that there was no way to miss getting to know everyone at least a little, and Mike had been nice enough. Remus would hardly have recognized him, though, on that park bench, if he hadn't pointed himself out.

As it was, though, Mike was one of those rare familiar faces without painful memories attached, and Remus was more than happy to get coffee with him.

**A/N: Boring chapter, sorry, but I hope you guys think my version of events works. I don't know nearly as much about the British school system as I should to be writing this. Feel free to correct me. You guys have been great about reviewing—keep it up! Also, next chapter we get to meet Sherlock!**


	5. Iraq or Afghanistan?

**Disclaimer: This is in no way mine.**

**A/N: I've been updating pretty frequently. This may change, and I hope you'll stick with me. There are way too many of you who have expressed interest in this story for me to give up, and I'll try to update at least once every two weeks if not a lot more, but this is not daily and never will be. Please be patient. Your interest does make me update sooner. Please keep reviewing and favoriting and subscribing and stuff. It makes me really happy, and it's the reason I've updated as much as I have.**

The man was young, with wavy black hair that seemed to lie effortlessly in place. The easy grace and unconscious attractiveness he exuded piqued something in Remus's memory that forced him to check himself before he winced noticeably. This new man was altogether too reminiscent of Sirius Black.

The man looked up from his test tube. "Iraq or Afghanistan?"

"I—what?" He wasn't a wizard. He would have had to have been a contemporary of Remus's at Hogwarts, and Remus knew he didn't remember anyone who looked like this aside from Black. He was sure of it. But if the man wasn't a wizard, how was he practicing Legillimency?

"Which was it—Iraq or Afghanistan?"

Remus shifted his weight, pain shooting suddenly up his leg as his did so. "Afghanistan. How did you—?"

Remus had to wonder how much the man already knew. He tried to think of only the normal, Muggle-y parts of his experience in Afghanistan—soldiers carried into the field hospital after accidentally driving over roadside bombs or walking into the path of an IED, limbs missing or faces blown half off or blood spurting from everywhere so thickly that it was nearly impossible to tell where they were hurt. There were plenty of those memories, and as they flashed before Remus's eyes it was hard to keep standing. War was hell; it was that simple, and, as long as Remus kept it that simple, he might be safe from this Legillimens.

What would put Remus at risk was thinking about the werewolfy parts of Afghanistan. If this man were a Legillimens—and what else could he be?—it would make no difference for him to find out about Remus's ability to do magic, since that would be something the two had in common. What would ruin Remus, though, would be if his one prospect for a flat share—his _only_ prospect, since he would never have tried to inflict himself on anyone if Mike Stamford hadn't pressured him as he did—found out that he was a werewolf.

The trouble was that trying _not _to think about something always leads to thinking about it, and so Remus watched plenty of werewolf moments flash before him, too, as he stood in that lab in Bart's facing the man who might just become his flat mate. Soldiers go missing all the time, so perhaps it would have been easier for Remus to hide his lycanthropy as a soldier, but he wanted to pay off medical school and gain some medical experience, and the position of army doctor was invaluable for both purposes, so he took it, lycanthropy be damned.

The problem is that a werewolf is never in the position to say "lycanthropy be damned." It is not a condition that can be so easily dismissed. Realizing this, and realizing how dim his prospects were of hiding his transformed self in a barracks full of soldiers, Remus made it a habit early on in his military career to accompany the soldiers sometimes on expeditions, especially as the full moon approached. This was not really in line with protocol, but a few Confundus Charms and an Imperious Curses here and there made everything much easier. The day when Remus was about to transform, he would do his utmost to run into a bomb and Disapparate just as it was exploding, enabling himself to transform in the desert and come back several days later, about as cut-up and bruised as everyone would expect a bomb survivor to be, but not dead like his comrades-in-arms had feared. In his four years in the military, the soldiers around Remus had gotten used to his disappearances, reappearances, near-death escapes, and subsequent head-to-toe minor injuries. It had even earned him several nicknames, some of which made use of the fact that "Gone" rhymed with "John." Some people even called Remus "Where's Watson?" This was uncomfortably close "Werewolf Watson," which Remus always heard in his head when they said it, but eventually he got somewhat used to the idea that no one on his military base knew that he was a werewolf, nor did they have much of a chance of finding out.

Even so, thinking about Afghanistan necessarily meant thinking about the desert transformations, regardless of what Remus wanted to hide from the potential Legillimens who stood at the chemistry station across the room. His memories from transformations were always poor, but snatches of the desert—pain and howling and sand in his cuts and chasing camels and getting stuck in windstorms and clawing himself in the eye in an attempt to get rid of the grit—flashed past him, even as he tried to suppress them.

"How did you know?" Remus asked, trying to shut off his stupid traitorous brain.

The young chemist set down his test tube and walked toward Remus. "Haircut, the way you carry yourself—it all says military, but you've been to Bart's. Not a soldier, then. An army doctor. Tan on your hands, but"—the man inserted his finger into Remus's sleeve and pushed it up—"not on your arms. Not sunbathing, then. Conclusion: you've recently been in the military as an army doctor. Hence the question, 'Iraq or Afghanistan?'"

Remus was utterly discomfited by the other man's comfort touching him—no one had taken that much liberty with his personal space since (Remus did not want to think about it) Sirius Black—and the man's method of using observations to reach his conclusions was certainly creepy, but even so Remus's overwhelming emotion was relief. This man was not a Legillimens. Or, at least, if he were a Legillimens, he did a good job of hiding it and was not overly concerned that Remus was a werewolf. Never mind, such people didn't exist—the only people to truly not mind Remus's condition were either Dumbledore, in Azkaban, or dead. The chemist was not a Legillimens, then.

There was something about him, though. Despite his fragile alabaster skin and delicate wavy hair, he had the air and manner of someone who could take care of himself. In fact, Remus's instinct was that this was a man would insist on taking care of himself.

This was excellent. Just the sort of man who would make a good flat mate. Remus tried not to laugh as the man asked if it was all right that he played the violin. He could play the bloody spiked tuba harp for all Remus cared, as long as he could be depended on not to die if something went wrong with Remus's transformation. Even if he did have a strange way of interacting. Even if he did take liberties with Remus's personal space.

**A/N: Reviews make me happy. And make me want to update.**


	6. Two Bedrooms

**Disclaimer: **_**None**_** of this is mine. Especially as I steal—or attempt to steal—so much dialogue from **_**A Study in Scarlet**_**. That belongs to Moffat. **

**A/N: You guys are the best! I love your reviews and favorites and subscriptions, and I can't believe how many I've gotten. Thank you so much. Keep it up, and I'll try to update frequently. Sound fair?**

Remus met Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street, as they had agreed. He almost Apparated there but decided at the last minute that he ought to pay for a cab, since somehow Sherlock Holmes seemed like the sort of Muggle who might notice Apparition.

Remus and his potential flat mate reached the steps to the building at about the same time, Remus limping and leaning on his cane. He hated having to rely on such measures, but he had gotten shot just before a transformation, and somehow in his werewolf mind he had become convinced that the bullet was lodged in his thigh, not his shoulder. He knew, rationally, that this was absurd—but the thoughts he came up with during transformations were almost impossible to shake.

"I know the landlady, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock Holmes volunteered as the two stood on the step, waiting for the woman in question to answer the door. "I was able to help her out a bit when her husband was accused of two murders in Florida."

"Did you prevent his being found guilty?" Remus asked politely. He had no idea what this Sherlock Holmes character could do to affect a court's conclusion—although, judging from the way he had known everything about Remus when they had met at Bart's, the man's capabilities had to be staggering.

"No—I ensured it." Remus turned to gape at Sherlock just as the door swung open. What kind of a woman _was_ this Mrs. Hudson?

Whoever she was, whatever she was, she opened the door and smiled at Sherlock Holmes in a motherly manner. "_Sherlock_," she crooned, stepping forward to hug him. Remus decided immediately that Mrs. Hudson had to be at least a bit mad. How else could she possibly _croon_ at _Sherlock_? He was impressive, to be sure, but he seemed so—_untouchable_—to Remus, with his brusque, cold manner. Remus would have been afraid to cut himself on the man's edges were he ever to try to hug him, but Mrs. Hudson apparently had no such qualms.

Sherlock tolerated the embrace for a brief moment before stepping out of it and past Mrs. Hudson, into the building. "This is Doctor John Watson," he said in a tone that could not have been more devoid of emotion. "We're here about the flat."

"Of course, dear," replied Mrs. Hudson, bustling past Sherlock and up the narrow staircase. Remus followed, leaning on his detested cane, and made it up the stairs with effort.

When Remus finally made it through the door to flat B, Sherlock was already pacing the room, casting his gaze around the airy space, lighting on the large windows and sumptuous sofa. "Yes, this will do nicely. The two of us together should be able to afford it. What do you think, John?"

Remus tried to take in the flat while mentally calculating and re-calculating the food/rent split of his army pension and trying to guess what Sherlock's income was. "Uh . . ."

"There's another bedroom upstairs, if you'll be _needing _two bedrooms," Mrs. Hudson murmured in a confidential tone.

Remus nearly allowed himself to groan with frustration. _Again?_ _Really?_ Why did people always assume—and Sherlock even _looked_ so much like Black, too . . . "Of course we'll be needing two!"

"Oh, we have all sorts here. Mrs. Turner next door has got _married ones_." Every word Mrs. Hudson spoke seemed to gain more emphasis while simultaneously growing quieter, until at the end she was whispering what to her was clearly the most crucial part of her announcement.

It took a lot of Remus's self-control to avoid snapping back. "Yes, that's all very well, and I wish them every happiness," he wanted to shout. "But they're just gay, and I would be gay _and _a _werewolf,_ and do you even _want_ to imagine how much of an outcast that would make me? In _both _of the worlds that already don't feel like _mine_? No, thank you, Mrs. Hudson. I'm straight, and I'd prefer if you didn't start spreading rumors to the contrary."

O.o.O.o.O

Remus suspected Mrs. Hudson of spreading rumors that night, when he and Sherlock went to dinner and the man who came to seat them said, "It's on the house. For you _and _your date."

"I'm not his date," Remus protested automatically. He'd done it before, when James had been off on dates with Lily and Peter had been _somewhere_ doing _something_ and he and Black had wound up getting lunch together in Hogsmeade, just the two of them. For some reason, Madame Rosmerta had been determined to believe that there was something other than near-brotherly friendship between the two Marauders. Remus had forgotten how subtly obnoxious the assumption was until now.

Sherlock simply shrugged and took a seat in the booth, so Remus followed suit. The man—Angelo—came back with menus and a candle to make the booth "more romantic."

"I'm not his date!" Remus insisted again. He barely even _knew _Sherlock—in fact, he was beginning to be convinced that he did _not_ know Sherlock, and even perhaps that no one ever _could_ know Sherlock. The two of them were most definitely not dating.

"Sherlock here got me out of trouble a few years back," Angelo told Remus proudly, seemingly wanting to help Sherlock show off to his presumed date.

"It was simple," Sherlock said, but somehow this did not come across as modesty when it reached Remus's ears. Remus had only met Sherlock a few hours ago, but he really did not seem like the modest type. "Angelo was arrested for murder, but I was able to prove that he _couldn't _have been guilty, because at the time of the attack he was in a completely _different_ part of London, housebreaking."

Remus had to wonder if all of Sherlock's acquaintances had backstories as strange and sketchy as Mrs. Hudson and Angelo. What did this man _do_ to meet these people, and to help them?

"He kept me out of prison," Angelo boasted on Sherlock's behalf, staring pointedly at Remus.

"You still _went_ to prison," Sherlock pointed out.

Angelo made some sort of nonsensical retort before bustling away to attend to some of his other customers.

Remus cast about for something to say. This Sherlock Holmes character certainly filled his brain with questions, more questions than he'd had since he started trying to learn his way around the Muggle world. "So . . . uh . . . do you have a girlfriend?"

"Not a _girl_friend."

"Oh." Oh indeed. Was _that_ why Mrs. Hudson and Angelo had their assumptions? "A boyfriend, then?"

"No."

What? "So you're unattached. Like me." Merlin, that came out wrong. Remus tensed, awaiting Sherlock's response.

"Look, John, your attention is flattering, but I have to tell you now that I consider myself married to my work."

_What?_ What kind of _weirdo_—actually, Remus could imagine Dumbledore claiming to be married to his work. Or McGonagall. Or even maybe Mad-Eye. When work was important—yes, then some people did decide to dedicate their entire lives to it. This conclusion stoked the flames of curiosity for Remus's burning question of _what Sherlock Holmes's work was_, but first there was some backpedaling to do. "I—I'm not—I'm just saying it's fine. It's _all_ fine." _Please say it back. Please say it back. Please say I could be a werewolf and you wouldn't hate me for it._

Sherlock didn't know that there was supposed to be anything about Remus—John—to unconditionally accept. Remus had to wonder what he would have said if he _had _known. He probably would have just kept staring out the window. Which wasn't too bad, all told.

**A/N: I'll try to update tomorrow if possible. I like this story too. In the meantime, review!**


	7. Both Harrys

**Disclaimer: None of this is mine.**

**A/N: This scene is **_**before**_** the scene from the last chapter at Angelo's.**

"So what, exactly, do you do?" Remus asked after he had gotten into a cab with Sherlock and with altogether too little explanation as to what in Merlin's name he was doing there.

"What do you think?"

Oh goody. A guessing game. Sherlock got more like Black ever minute. "Well . . . You can tell things about a person just by looking at them. We're on our way to a crime scene, but you're not a policeman. You notice little details . . . I don't know, you're some kind of detective?"

"A consulting detective. The only one in the world. I'm quite proud of the profession; I invented it."

"But the police don't consult amateurs!" This popped out of Remus's mouth before he could stop it. It was a ridiculous thing to say. For one thing, he knew it wasn't true, at least not technically. All Muggles were amateurs, simply by virtue of their being Muggles; Remus had learned quite quickly to avoid pointing this out and to rather assume the expertise of most Muggles in their supposed specialties. Remus tended to parrot these views on Muggle knowledge simply to avoid rocking the boat, but he realized as soon as he said it that Sherlock Holmes was probably the sort of person to agree with him on the amateur status of Muggles—or, at least, of Muggles who were not Sherlock—and besides, lying to Sherlock more than necessary already seemed like a horrible idea.

"Back at Bart's," Sherlock began ostentatiously, and Remus knew he had been right, "I knew about your brother's drinking."

"Mike told you about me." Remus said it because it was the first thing that came to his mind, but he didn't really believe it. The story would have had to have gotten quite garbled for Sherlock to think Remus had a drunk for a _brother._

"No. I _observed_."

"But how—"

"Give me the phone."

Remus handed it over reluctantly. It was a special magic-resistant variety of phone that was primarily marketed to Squibs who needed to maneuver the Muggle world but were likely to have frequent close proximity to magic as well. Replacing the phone would cost a fortune.

"I knew the phone couldn't be yours. It's a luxury model, only about six months old. A crippled army doctor, just back from Afghanistan, living on an army pension? You didn't buy this. Besides, it doesn't look new. It's scratched and battered. It's been kept in a pocket with other things—keys, coins. Careless. The man sitting beside me would not treat his one luxury item like this.

"So whose was it, then? I bet you can guess my next clue."

"The engraving," Remus supplied automatically.

"To Harry Watson. Love Clara. Who's Harry? A relative, clearly. Possibly a cousin, but a lone bachelor looking for a flat share? You don't have an extended family, at least not one you're close to. What about your father? Possible, but this is a new device, not something an old man would use. A brother, then.

"And Clara. Obviously, this was a gift from a love interest. Price of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. But then, why is Harry giving it away? Perhaps she left him, but then she would have kept it—people are sentimental like that. No, it's far more likely that _he_ left _her_, and then he gave you the phone."

If everyone were Sherlock Holmes, there would be no _point_ in Legillimency, Remus decided. "How about the drinking, then?"

"See these scratches around the dock? Your brother went to plug it in every night, but he was drunk; his hands were shaking. You never see a sober man's phone _with_ these scratches; you never see a drunk's without them."

The cab stopped and Sherlock got out. After a moment, Remus was able to shake his awed reverie enough to get out of the cab, too.

"How did I do?" Sherlock asked as the two of them walked toward the gloomy hotel.

"Well, Harry does drink, and the phone is from Clara. Clara moved out a few months ago, and they're getting a divorce."

Sherlock actually jumped into the air. Good _Merlin_, no one other than Black had ever been this excitable. "Yes! I didn't think I'd get _all _of it right."

About that. "_Harry_ is short for _Harriet._"

Sherlock jerked backward without ceasing to walk forward. The man was really capable of some amazing mental and physical contortions, it seemed. "Your _sister!_ Ugh, why didn't _I _think of that?"

Not quite.

Harry was Remus's cousin, the only daughter of his mother's only brother. Remus's father had been an only child, as had Harry's mother, so Remus and Harry were each other's only cousins. They were only a year apart, too—Harry was older—so, as small children, they'd been very close. Everything had changed when Harry turned eleven and didn't receive a Hogwarts letter.

Up until then, Harry had been accepting about Remus being a werewolf. She still called him "Rem" and climbed trees with him in the summer and invited him to come to her house to build snowmen and drink hot chocolate in the winter. Her insecurity about her own magic had bled through her tough façade at times, but this had been rare, and Remus had been a little boy, not really equipped to notice such things. Once she found out she was a Squib, though, Harry had become angry. Her parents weren't exactly biased, but they were both purebloods, and they'd never dealt with any reality that didn't involve magic. They didn't know what to do. They enrolled Harry in a Muggle school, where she was years behind because her parents had been teaching her potions and wizarding history and such at home her entire childhood. Things never really seemed to improve. Remus hadn't exactly been surprised when the family started to whisper about Harry starting to drink.

Remus and Harry's relationship was a strange one, but then, families were strange. They couldn't quite forget their childhood camaraderie, but they could never recover it, either. Remus tried to sympathize with Harry about being an outcast of the wizarding world, since he was, too, but he got to go to Hogwarts and that was all Harry really cared about. Sometimes, Remus thought she hated him.

The problem with Harry was that she sort of hated everyone, because she insisted that no one understood her exact situation or the exact way it felt to be her kind of outsider. Remus wished it had worked out between her and Clara—Clara was a Squib, too, and it seemed that for a time Harry had thought that Clara understood her. When she and Clara had split, Harry had found out that Remus was living in London and had visited him. She had wound up pouring out the entire story of her relationship with Clara, blow by blow, for hours, and Remus got the distinct impression that he was the first audience this story had ever had. When Harry had begged Remus to take some of Clara's gifts off her hands, Remus hadn't been able to say no, both because he could use all the help he could get and because he'd never really been able to deny Harry. After Remus had picked up Harry's unwanted gifts, though, he hadn't heard any more from her, and he guessed that he wouldn't for a while.

Thinking about Harry made Remus think of a different Harry. Harry James Potter, the one who _really _had James as a middle name. Merlin, the kid would be—what—_nine _by now? Merlin, it had been ages. Remus wondered suddenly what had happened to the child. He'd given the matter remarkably little thought, considering that Harry James Potter was the one descendent of the entire Marauder clan.

As Remus hustled as fast as he could with his cane and his leg toward the hotel building that Sherlock was already about to enter, he wished the best on Harry James Potter, the little boy whose middle name he had hijacked. The little boy whose parents he had loved. The little boy who belonged to the _other_ world. Remus hoped he could meet Harry someday.

**A/N: Reviews make me update faster! The next chapter will be called "Sallow-Faced Git."**


	8. Sallow-Faced Git

**Disclaimer: Much as I wish I were one of the people responsible for the backstories I'm using, I'm not. **

**A/N: Too few reviews make for too long between updates. Please review more this time!**

There were a few police cars in front of the hotel, and the entrance was blocked from public intrusion by police tape. At the edge of the police tape stood a sallow-faced man in blue scrubs, and a ludicrous idea popped into Remus's head: Snape had also become a doctor and was here to expose Remus as a werewolf to the Muggle world, as revenge for all the times the Marauders had bullied him. Remus blanched and barely managed to keep his cane from sliding out from under him.

Sherlock approached the sallow-faced man with a look of contempt on his face. Oh Merlin. What if Black had gotten out of Azkaban and this whole situation was some sort of sick reunion? The contemptuous look on Sherlock's face made it all too likely. That was exactly how Black looked at Snape. "Ah, Anderson, here we are again."

Remus could breathe. The man was called "Anderson." He couldn't be Snape. Unless this was some elaborate ruse meant to further ensnare Remus, and Black and Snape were in on it together . . . Remus couldn't picture Black and Snape ever consenting to cooperate, but then there was apparently a large section of Black's character that Remus had never anticipated. Remus grit his teeth and kept walking toward the hotel as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

"I don't see _why_ they let you on crime scenes," Anderson sneered, looking and sounding exactly like Snape had when he had addressed Black.

"I could say the same to you," Sherlock returned, and the haughty note in his voice was exactly like the one that had always crept into Black's when he talked to Snape. "And is your wife away for long?"

That was it. Anderson couldn't be Snape, because Snape never would have gotten married. No one would have consented. Although . . . sometimes, when the Marauders had seen Lily and Snape together during their early years at Hogwarts, James had worried that—but no. Lily had married James and was now dead, and no other female would ever be as kind and forgiving as Lily, so there was no one else on Earth who would have married Snape.

Meanwhile, Anderson was making his retort. "Oh, don't pretend you worked that out. Somebody told you that."

"Your deodorant told me that." It was exactly the sort of ridiculous, irreverent, unexpected thing that Sirius—_Black,_ not Sirius, _Black_—would have said. Remus found himself inwardly cheering, as he sometimes did when Sirius—_Black_—and Snape got into their arguments and had the restraint to avoid pulling their wands. Sirius—_Black_—said brilliant things sometimes, and there had always been something satisfying about watching someone as pale as Snape open and close his mouth like a pasty fish.

"My deodorant."

"It's for _men_." Sherlock had tried to swallow his grin, but it came out in his speech even though it didn't reach his face. Remus didn't need to know him well to know that; knowing Black was enough.

"Well, of _course_ it's for men! _I'm_ wearing it!" Hearing the anger in Anderson's tone, and considering that the topic of lycanthropy had not yet come up, Remus decided that the enmity between Sherlock and Anderson was too great for them to be working together. They had to both be Muggles. With that settled, Remus allowed himself to calm down and cheer inwardly as Sherlock showed up this ridiculous sallow-faced git who was evidently cheating on his wife. Remus told himself that he was glad that a cheater was being humiliated, but he knew that what really pleased him was how much it felt like he had Sirius back—Sirius _before_ Remus had to start thinking of him as "Black." Sherlock was Sirius all over again, except smarter and less social and a Muggle and not a mass murderer or a traitor. And getting to see Sirius face off with Snape without any of the baggage of the bullying or Sirius's later betrayal—well, it was more than Remus had hoped for in years. It was _wonderful_.

"So's Sergeant Donovan." From the body language of everyone else present, Remus could tell that Sergeant Donovan was the frizzy-haired woman standing behind Anderson. She did not look like Snape's type, which made Remus feel even more relieved than he already had.

Anderson's face crumpled just slightly, but Remus had seen Snape look that way enough times that he knew exactly what the expression meant. "Now look, whatever you're trying to _imply_ . . ."

"I'm not implying anything. I'm sure Sally came round for a nice little chat and just _happened_ to stay over. And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees." The playful undercurrent in Sherlock's voice was Sirius's. Remus could barely contain his glee. He was no longer the only Marauder.

Sherlock entered the hotel at that moment, and Remus had to hurry to catch up. _That _snapped him out of his reverie. Sherlock may have been acting like a blast from Remus's past, but time had still marched on, and Remus's leg had not forgotten.

**A/N: Please review! There should be two more Study in Pink scenes, unless you don't like that idea. The next one is meeting Mycroft. Please tell me what you think.**


	9. Loyalty

**Disclaimer: At this point it's mostly Moffat and Gattis's, but there's plenty of J.K. Rowling in there, still. None of it is mine.**

**A/N: Good heavens, it's been awhile. I'm really sorry, and I'll try to update more frequently. I know what the next couple of chapters will be about, and then I'll have to start planning again. **

The ringing phones immediately made Remus think of magic, but then he remembered that performing any sort of spell on the phones would have put them out of order permanently rather than making them ring. What, then, was happening? What creepy Muggle power was making phones ring as Remus walked past?

Though part of him wanted to run away as fast as he could and ignore all telephones as if they carried spattergoit, curiosity got the better of him, as it always did. Remus stepped inside a telephone booth and picked up the phone.

"Look up and to your left," said a creepily neutral voice on the other end of the telephone. Remus obeyed the order. There was a security camera in his line of vision. Remus was wondering if it would focus on him or shoot him with some kind of laser—he still wasn't sure how those things worked, but from the Muggle movies he'd managed to see in the past few years they seemed to be sort of like Muggle stunning spells—but what it did was far more frightening. The camera turned away. Whatever happened would now have one fewer witness.

"Now to your right." Remus turned his head just in time to see another camera turn away. Oh Merlin. There would be no one to see him die, if that was the plan . . . It reminded him almost of Snape's Muffliato spell, except with sight instead of hearing. As much as Remus often wanted to hide, and as unsafe as he often felt around people, now he wanted nothing more than to pull all the attention he could. Instead, he just kept listening to the voice on the phone.

"And in front of you." That was the last camera that could see this telephone booth. He was sure of it.

"I would make some sort of threat, Doctor Watson, but I'm sure you understand the situation." Remus actually didn't understand anything at all about the situation, except that someone probably wanted to hurt him, but perhaps that was all he needed to know. He wondered briefly what to make of the fact that he'd just been called "Doctor Watson." Clearly, whoever was on the other end of the phone knew something about him, but he didn't know Remus's real secrets.

"Get in the car." Just then, a black car pulled up next to the telephone booth. Remus hung up the telephone, considered Disapparating, and decided that doing so could raise way too many questions from the people affiliated with this car. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble with the wizarding authorities. No, he'd save Apparition for later, in case he really needed it. He got into the car.

Remus's eyes were immediately pulled by the buxom brunette who was already in the backseat. It had been a precious long time since Remus had experienced so much affection as a simple snog. One brief relationship at Hogwarts and another at Bart's, and that was it. Remus longed desperately for another shot, a better shot. He knew he didn't deserve it—as a werewolf, he was hardly fit to be a boyfriend or husband—but lycanthropy be damned, that didn't stop him from _wanting. _"Hi. Um, I'm John."

"I know," said the woman without looking up from her cell phone. Why did all of the new people he was meeting have an obsession with texting?

"Um, what's your name?"

The woman hesitated a bit. "Anthea."

"Is that your real name?"

"No."

"Right." _Well, the name you think belongs to me isn't my real name either, so we're even_, Remus wanted to retort, but he held his tongue. He hardly needed to give anyone any _more_ information about himself right now.

"Will you tell me where we're going?"

"No."

"Right." What mad world was he living in? Yesterday he had been a boring ex-army doctor in a tiny flat, and now he was being whisked away in a black unmarked car with a hot mysterious woman after responding to an anonymous phone call. Some people, of course, would have thought of his early life as too strange to be true, with all the magic and werewolves and moving staircases, but to Remus this was the part that seemed like fiction. For Merlin's sake, it was like he was suddenly in one of those Muggle detective movies!

The car stopped and Remus got out of it. He looked around and saw that he was in a sort of warehouse-like setting. "Setting." Good Merlin, this crime-drama stuff was going to his head. This was just another section of his thoroughly unbelievable life—nothing more, nothing less. In any event, the first floor of the building was open on one side, and the lights were on inside. A man stood near the center of the warehouse with his back to Remus, leaning on an umbrella. Remus walked toward him.

The man turned around. "John Watson. Good of you to come." His voice was oily and insincere. Remus wondered how a man who was such a bad actor could possibly know his name. In Remus's experience, one had to be an actor to succeed at anything. One had to know how to hide.

"Who are you?"

The man ignored him. "I have a proposition. I understand that you have just moved in with Sherlock Holmes. I'd like you to tell me what he's up to. Where he goes, whom he sees, that sort of thing. Nothing . . . indecent. Nothing that should make you feel uncomfortable. Just little updates, you know." Remus hadn't met anyone this creepy since his one run-in with Voldemort, and then he had been lucky enough not to be the one confronting the villain.

"Why do you want to know what he's doing? Are you his friend?" If so, this man probably wasn't even the strangest of all of Sherlock's friends.

"I believe I'm the closest thing he has to a friend."

"And what's that?"

"An enemy. In fact, I think he might call me his _arch_-enemy."

"Then why do you want _me_ to spy on him? I just met him."

"And since then you've moved in with him, and now you're solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?" Good Merlin, another one. What would it take to convince the world that he was not about to enter a relationship with every attractive black-haired bloke he roomed with?

"I'm not going to _spy_ on Sherlock Holmes."

"I pay. Generously." Remus was starting to wonder about Sherlock. Was he the whole reason the car had come for him in the first place? What did this man want with Sherlock? Who was Sherlock, really?

Remus kept his tone even as he said, "I don't care."

"Doctor Watson, you are living on an army pension. Not exactly rich, are you? You could do with a bit of extra money. With my support, you could do quite nicely for yourself."

Remus's phone beeped just then. A text had arrived. Remus checked it. "If convenient, come at once. –SH." For a hundred reasons, Remus wished he could, but walking away from this man did not seem as straightforward as it ought to have been. Still, he made an effort to put up at least some resistance. "No."

"Come now, Doctor Watson. I'd just like to know a bit about what Mr. Holmes is doing, and I would pay you well for it."

"Why?"

"I worry about him. Constantly."

"That's nice of you."

"But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a difficult relationship." Privately, Remus had to wonder if Sherlock had an _easy_ relationship with anyone. In this way, he was Sirius's opposite. Sirius could get along with just about anyone, anytime, anywhere. Sherlock, meanwhile, mostly seemed to put people off.

Remus's phone beeped again. "If inconvenient, come anyway. –SH." Off-putting indeed.

"No." As smart as this man had to be to have been able to find Remus and bring him here, he was awfully thick. How in Merlin's name could he not have figured out by now that Remus would not change his mind?

"But I haven't mentioned a figure!"

"Don't bother." _Marauders aren't bought. _

The man laughed. "You're very loyal, very quickly." _Loyal_. That word Dumbledore had used at Peter's funeral, when Remus had thought that "gullible" would have been more fitting. Remus started to doubt himself. He had been blind to Sirius's betrayal and look where it had gotten him—where it had gotten all of them. What if Sherlock really was just another iteration of Black?

Remus tried to defend himself without trying himself up in all of that loyalty business. "No, I'm not. I'm just not interested." _Marauders aren't bought,_ he repeated to himself.

The man reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a suspiciously familiar brown leather notebook, flipping it open carelessly. "Trust issues, it says here."

"What's that?" Remus demanded, suddenly much more worried.

Once again, the man ignored him. "Could it be that you've decided to trust Sherlock Holmes, of all people?"

"Who says I trust him?" Remus demanded, but he knew he was caught. He trusted Sherlock already, just like he had trusted James and Peter and Sirius—from the first ride on the Hogwarts Express to the first meeting in a chemistry lab, Remus just started _trusting _people. This was the same thing all over again, even though he hated himself for having trusted Sirius. Damn it! At least there were no James and Lily and Peter to die for his mistake this time. If he had erred, this time the consequence would fall on him. For a moment, Remus almost hoped Sherlock _would _be the death of him, so that he could atone for his error in trusting Sirius.

"You don't seem the kind to make friends easily." Oh, this man did _not _know Remus Lupin. Remus, who on the first ride on the Hogwarts Express latched onto the boys who would define his next seven years. Remus, who on the first night of rounds as a Prefect felt himself genuinely caring as the young Lily Evans poured her heart out to him. Of course Remus made friends easily. That was the problem.

"Are we done?" he demanded. He wanted to leave so he could stop thinking about all of this. He'd lived as a Muggle for eight years now, damn it! It was high time he stopped reliving his wizarding days.

The man looked up from the brown notebook. "You tell me."

Merlin, this man was more pretentiously rhetorical than Professor Slughorn. Remus turned and started walking away.

"I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him, but I can see from your left hand—that's not going to happen."

Remus stopped in place and shook his head. All of these damned deducing Muggles with their crazy incongruous pronouncements! First it was deodorant for men, and now it was his left hand? "My what?" he demanded, turning.

"Show me."

Remus held up his left hand defiantly and glared at the man, who walked closer to him and put out his hands, reaching for Remus's extended left one. Remus recoiled instinctively. "Don't." As surely as he trusted Sherlock, he did not trust this man. The man merely tilted his head and glared, however, and it was a look that dispensed discipline as surely as Professor McGonagall's looks did. Remus extended his left hand again and let the man touch it. The man did so exactingly, not gently but scientifically, almost the way Sherlock had peeled back Remus's cuff earlier.

"Remarkable."

"What is?"

"Most people blunder round this city and all they see are streets and shops and cars. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. You've seen it already, haven't you?"

"What's wrong with my hand?" Remus asked, thoroughly fed up with this man's incapability of topical conversation.

"You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand. Your therapist thinks it's post-traumatic stress disorder. _She_ thinks you're haunted by memories of your military service."

"Who the hell are you? How do you know that?" As a doctor, Remus knew how seriously most professionals took confidentiality. He wasn't an idealist. He didn't think people kept promises just because they signed a piece of paper. But people really did care about maintaining their patients' privacy. What had this man done to change that?

"Fire her. She's got it the wrong way round. You're under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady. You're not haunted by the war, Doctor Watson. You miss it." No, he didn't. Not really. What he missed was being with the other Marauders. That was plenty stressful, at least for someone as usually unassuming and law-abiding as Remus. The constant fear of being caught, of blowing someone up unintentionally, of accidentally getting his friends in more trouble than he could get them out of—that was what he missed. War was a poor substitute.

The man leaned forward and whispered, "Welcome back." Remus almost snorted indignantly. He wasn't _back._ He wanted to be with the other Marauders again, and he never would be.

The man started to walk away, swinging his umbrella in lazy circles. Just as Remus's cell phone beeped for a third time, the man said, "Time to choose a side, Doctor Watson."

Too late. Marauders didn't switch sides once they'd aligned themselves, and Remus was still a Marauder at heart even if he couldn't be one in practice. And he'd already aligned himself with Sherlock Holmes.

"Might be dangerous. –SH." To hell with dangerous. Remus couldn't wait to get back to Baker Street.

**A/N: The next chapter involves the cabbie, and then I'll be done with A Study in Pink. I may not use the other episodes much, specifically. In the meantime, I love reviews. **


	10. Good Shot

**Disclaimer: Not mine. **

Remus burst from the cab and ran into the nearer of the two buildings, not stopping even to consciously decide which one he would search first. He flung open the door and sprinted down the corridor in front of him, gun at the ready and wand poking into his forearm inside his sleeve. His limp was long forgotten; the International Statute of Secrecy, while still in mind, was prepared to be ignored. All that mattered was finding Sherlock and rescuing him from this bloody stupid situation he'd flung himself into.

Remus checked the doors and glanced through windows as he careened down the hall, but he was alone. He pounded up the stairs and renewed his search on the second floor, more wary now, but everything was dark and seemed to be actually deserted. He wasn't running now; he tried each door and poked his head into each room, careful never to put his gun in a position where it couldn't be used. Still, halfway down the hall, there was no one—and no light or sound to give anyone away.

Then he saw it. Damn! He'd picked the wrong building. Across from him, through two sets of windows, Remus could see Sherlock and the cabbie. The cabbie? _What?_ Ohhhhhhhh . . .

Remus nearly gave himself away by yelling when he saw Sherlock holding up a bottle with a pill. No! He couldn't lose Sherlock, not now, not when he had just started thinking that maybe he'd finally found someone who would accept him and make him feel like he'd found the Marauders again.

For a minute, Remus was tempted to pull out his wand and use a Summoning Spell on the pill bottle, but already he could tell that Sherlock was not the type of Muggle to take kindly to having objects zoom out of his hand. All right then. There was one other way . . .

Remus pulled the trigger and saw the cabbie fall, almost instantaneously. Sherlock dropped the pill bottle, and for a second Remus felt actual happiness, just a confused bit of it that had somehow wandered into his brain on its way somewhere else. Just as quickly, Remus stopped knowing what to feel. It had been awhile since he'd killed anyone, and the cabbie had (to his knowledge) been neither a Death Eater nor a terrorist. It was strange to have shot him. For a moment, Remus just stood in the empty room, staring at the gun in his hand.

Luckily, Remus functioned on more than just emotion. Robotically, he locked his gun and put it in his waistband, where no one would see it under his jumper. Then he made his way back downstairs and out of the building, just as the police were arriving.

Sergeant Donovan was standing just inside the police tape, looking around and not seeming to have anything in particular to do. Remus considered attempting to slink away but decided she was the sort who would be less suspicious if he talked to her than if he tried to avoid her. He sidled up next to her and said, "Hey. What happened?"

Sergeant Donovan whipped her head around, having clearly not noticed Remus until he spoke. _Poor reflexes_, he noted involuntarily. It was the sort of thing he'd learned to notice in the Order of the Phoenix, and then again in the army. "You're here?" Donovan asked.

"Can't let Sherlock run off without me."

Donovan narrowed her eyes. "Are you that attached? Already?"

"He's the reason we've got a discount on our flat. I can't just let him _die_. Anyway, what's going on?"

"It was the cabbie. He was tricking people. He had two pills—one safe and one poisonous. He'd challenge people to pick one pill to take, and he'd take the other. They'd accept, but he'd always get the safe one and get away from the scene of the crime. Lucky for Sherlock that someone shot the guy before he could take a pill. I think our resident '_genius'_ just might have bit it this time."

Remus remembered to act surprised. "What? Was Sherlock going to take one of those pills?"

Donovan's look was pitying. "He can't resist a challenge. Even if it'll cost him his life."

Remus caught Sherlock's eye just then, across the parking lot, and he could read on Sherlock's face that he had just worked something out. Before his own face could give anything away, Remus looked back at Donovan. "Then it's good the cabbie died before Sherlock could take the pill, I suppose."

"If you want him alive, then definitely."

Just then, Sherlock joined them, wrapped in a shock blanket. Remus shot him a look, begging him to play dumb as he had begged the other Marauders so many times before. "Sergeant Donovan was just explaining everything. Two pills. It's a dreadful business, isn't it? Just dreadful."

Meanwhile, Donovan started to wander away. Perhaps there was more significance in the glances Sherlock and Remus had shared than Donovan wanted to see. Whatever the reason, Sherlock took advantage of the absence to whisper, "Good shot."

There were still too many police around for Remus to be comfortable discussing the matter openly, so he replied, "Yes, yes. Must have been, from that window."

"You'd know," Sherlock retorted. "Need to get the powder burns out of your hands. I don't suppose you'd serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case. Are you all right?"

Remus was startled by the question. Sherlock _cared_? No one had asked him that since Dumbledore. "Yes, of course I'm all right." It was the safest answer.

"Well, you have just killed a man."

"Yes, I know," Remus replied. He thought about it. There had been so many before, but this occasion _was_ slightly different. He allowed himself to process aloud. "Yes, that's true, isn't it? But he wasn't a very nice man."

"No." Sherlock said it like he hadn't thought of it before. "No, he wasn't, was he?"

As a Marauder, Remus understood the value of keeping things light, so he decided to avoid any discussion of morality by saying, "And frankly a bloody awful cabbie."

"That's true. He _was_ a bad cabbie. You should have seen the route he took to get us here."

The two looked at each other, and suddenly everything was funny. They started chuckling, both trying ineffectually to hide it, almost like teenaged girls. "Stop. We can't giggle! It's a crime scene. Stop it!" Remus protested.

"You're the one who shot him," Sherlock shot back.

Remus felt the need to defend his action—killing someone was, after all, rather drastic—so he retorted, "You were going to take that damned pill, weren't you?"

"Of course I wasn't. Biding my time. I knew you'd turn up," Sherlock said, and Remus had to wonder how much he had already guessed.

"No you didn't," he retorted, in part because he wanted it to be true. "That's how you get your kicks, isn't it? You risk your life to prove you're clever." _Just like Sirius. Risked his life to prove he was better than Snape. Just like Sirius._

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you're an idiot." As a stock response, it had always worked with the other Marauders.

The "idiot" in question looked somewhat offended, but the bustling arrival of the mysterious dark-haired man who had kidnapped John earlier precluded Sherlock from responding. "So," said the man, "another case cracked. How very public-spirited. Though that's never really your motivation, is it." It was not a question.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock demanded, and this was not the confident enmity he had displayed when ridiculing Anderson. There was fear here; it was like watching Sirius confront a real Death Eater. (_Had he been a Death Eater all along?_) Memories flooded Remus, drowning the doubts, taking him back to the time when Sirius had run into his family during a battle between the Order of the Phoenix and a clump of Death Eaters. It was perhaps the first time Remus had seen Sirius actually afraid, and facets of Sirius's personality had suddenly made sense after that run-in. There was hatred there, stretched over pain as if to hide it, but that night nothing had been hidden. (_At lest, it seemed that way._)

When Remus forced himself out of his memory and started focusing on the conversation again, he heard the mysterious man saying, "We have more in common than you like to believe. This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer. And you know how it always upset Mummy."

"_I_ upset her? _Me_? It wasn't_ me_ that upset her, Mycroft!"

As Sherlock retorted, Remus was processing. As soon as his flatmate's retort was finished, he gave voice to his thoughts. "No. No, wait. 'Mummy.' Who's 'Mummy'?"

"Mother. Our mother. This is my brother, Mycroft." _It was Sirius's tone from when he pointed out Regulus, when the Marauders were twelve and Regulus was a first year in Slytherin. It was the tone he used when he pointed out his mother across the moor, through the haze of spells. Sirius's tone._

Meanwhile, it seemed that Sherlock could not resist a jab at his brother. "Putting on weight again?"

"Losing it. In fact." Mycroft had the same holier-than-thou intonation that Orion Black had used on the one occasion Remus had met him. Oh _Merlin. _

"He's your brother?" was all Remus could manage to say.

"Of course he's my brother. He's also the most dangerous man you've ever met." Strangely, it was almost a compliment.

"Please. I occupy a minor position in the British government."

"He _is_ the British government. When he's not too busy being the British Secret Service or the CIA on a freelance basis." Something occurred to Remus. This man was related to Sherlock Holmes and was apparently dangerously well connected and omniscient. Yet he believed Remus's story about being an army doctor, and just an army doctor? Wow. Remus silently thanked Merlin that he had gotten into med school before everything had gone digital, so that there was nothing funny about his school records.

And then, for just a second, he felt a thrill. He had fooled one of the most dangerous men in England. He'd done it, all by himself. He felt briefly invincible.

_Invincible_ was a bad word. James was supposed to be the invincible one, and look where it had gotten him. Remus was starting to sink into his memories when Sherlock said, "Dinner?"

It was the right kind of moment for one-word sentences. Remus grinned, surprised that Sherlock had said something that felt that _right_, and replied, "Starving."

**A/N: Please review! The next chapter is a full moon, and then I don't know what's going to happen. **


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